Enterprise RSS

If SuperPoke is the crack cocaine of Facebook, then perhaps Widgets are a mild narcotic

There’s been a lot of talk of late about “viral loops” (see Jeff Nolan or Andrew Chen), how they define the development of social applications and how they are the secret sauce of social networks. Without going into significant detail on the topic, the basic premise is this: viral loops will help your application get distributed by encouraging you to interact with your friends. Most of the Facebook applications are solely focused around this premise, (hence the SuperPoke reference in the title).

The parallel on the widget front is an "interaction loop", these are the hooks built in widgets that encourage interaction - by responding to content or sharing with others. The main difference between 'interaction' and 'viral' loops- not all interactions are viral, some interactions simply benefit the user through personalization or community interaction. Widgets differ slightly from social applications in that the end goal isn't always to get the user to send to a friend, widgets are typically used to provide a service to the end user, such as presenting personalized information or content.

So let’s take a look at some of the ways interaction loops are put together.

This is a simple video widget from NewsGator that plays videos and shows comments. There are 9+ different interaction loops within this widget.

1. Email link (& other share options) – the most obvious and first on the list. By clicking on the email button, a user is able to share the content with a friend, which gives the content more exposure. The experience endears the user to the widget (where they found the interesting story) because the content was interesting enough to respond to. Side note: email is a proxy for all of the ‘response’ options in the widget - IM, blog, send to phone, etc)

2. Email message – on the receiving end of the article email, the user is presented with links to add the widget from which the article was sent. If the article interests the person to which it was sent (which in most cases it will) then there is a higher than average chance that the user will also be interested in the widget it came from, so it is important to ensure that the user who received the email can also add that widget to their blog, social network or personal start page.

3. Ratings – you are more likely to vote on something that other users have already rated. Rating is the most explicit of content engagement, and its also the easiest and least intrusive. As an interaction loop, rating is great because you know exactly how the user feels about the content (its rating afterall)

4. Comment link - as far as interactions are concerned, commenting is one of the most valuable of interactions. A user who comments on an article is showing significant engagement - they are responding to the content, thinking about it, taking a risk by replying.

5. Get This link - This link is the gateway to a bunch of additional interaction and sharing options. This needs to be tracked as it relates to the other options presented, if a user doesn't click something else after this click, there is a problem...

6. Sharing destination links - Taking a widget and putting it on your blog, personal start page or social network represents the highest level of commitment to content. This shows more than just an interest in the content, but an interest as well in the editor or publisher of the widget.

7. Create your own widget link - questionable whether this should be considered an interaction loop - it is a shortcut to NewsGator's signup form for the widget framework.

8. Send widget to a friend link - like the email link, this shows reccomendation for both the content and the publisher

9. Send widget to a friend message - users who receive this message are shown the latest headlines from the widget as well as the sharing destination links, encouraging interaction with the added benefit of a referral from a friend.

These are just a few of the interaction loops that are possible, how you present these loops should reflect the targeting goals of your widget. Another discussion for a later blog post is to explore the value of each of these loops, as well as the monitization options for each.

Do you have a perspective on this topic? Let us know in the commnents!

Why Use a Desktop Feed Reader

I was going to write a quick post about why web-based readers don't work very well within the enterprise, then I noticed that Nick already wrote that.

1. Most web-based readers (NewsGator's being an exception) can't subscribe to secure feeds. I don't know about you, but that's a show-stopper for me - I have a number of password-protected feeds that I absolutely have to keep track of.
2. Web-based readers can't access "behind-the-firewall" feeds. For example, we have an internal server which runs FogBugz, and I'm subscribed to several FogBugz feeds which alert me to problem reports and inquiries regarding my software. I can't add these critically important feeds to a web-based reader.
3. Most web-based readers offer no offline support, and even when they do, offline reading is still far better in FeedDemon (this screencast shows why). FeedDemon doesn't just download your articles so you can read them offline - it can also prefetch the images they contain and the pages they link to, enabling you to browse the web without an Internet connection. Your web-based reader can't do that. This is one of those features that you don't think you'll need - until you do.
4. Many desktop readers are full-fledged web browsers, complete with access to your favorites, tabbed browsing, etc. In fact, FeedDemon is my web browser - I rarely use an external browser anymore. If you haven't used a browser that's also a powerful RSS reader, you're missing out.
5. If you live in Microsoft Outlook, you can use an RSS reader like NewsGator Inbox which integrates with Outlook, complete with flagging, indexing, filtering, archiving, and all the other features Outlook power-uses rely on.
6. Desktop readers have access to local resources, enabling a slew of features that aren't available in web-based readers. For example, desktop readers can integrate with your favorite blogging client, or download podcasts and copy them to your iPod or WMP device. NetNewsWire even integrates with iPhoto, Twitterrific, Mail, and iCal.
7. Desktop readers give you a choice about which feeds to keep completely private. Want your reading habits regarding a subset of your FeedDemon subscriptions kept completely on your local computer? Just put them in a folder that's not synchronized.
8. And of course, speed is often another benefit. Web app performance has become a lot better over the past few years, but we're not at the point where JavaScript in the browser can compete with native performance :)

NewsGator Makes Client Apps Free

NewsGator announced today the general availability of NetNewsWire 3.1, FeedDemon 2.6, and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile 2.0. The public beta of NewsGator Inbox 3.0 also began today. The award-winning products for PC (FeedDemon), Mac (NetNewsWire), Microsoft Outlook (Inbox), and mobile (NewsGator Go!) deliver a best-of-breed RSS reading experience that synchronizes through NewsGator’s online platform. All of the new product versions deliver a better user experience with the inclusion of significant performance, usability, and relevance enhancements.

NewsGator also announced that all of its client RSS reader products are now available free of charge and include free synchronization and other services. Users can now enjoy the great features and performance of all the web and desktop readers as well as free mobile options for iPhone, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry (powered by FreeRange) all synchronized to provide the same view of their RSS content no matter where they read. Enterprise customers will continue to enjoy the extended value of having all these clients synchronize with NewsGator Enterprise Server. The combination of innovation in client reader features and the ability to leverage core platform data and capabilities have made NewsGator products dominant in the enterprise.

“It’s all about ubiquity” said Greg Reinacker, CTO and founder. “We have over 100 Fortune 2000 companies using our enterprise server and client products. In selling to these enterprises we discovered that thousands of knowledge workers were already using one or more of our client products and we learned that we could drive the relevance of everyone’s experience by using the community’s anonymous content consumption patterns throughout the system. In general, we found that the more people that used our system, the more relevant we could make the product for each user. By making it easier for knowledge workers to user our clients we drastically increase the size of our user community. Enterprises that then deploy our server can take advantage of the synchronization and increased relevance for every user supported by the system. Likewise, we can extend these capabilities to our online platform which currently serves well over one million consumers and indexes seven million new articles per day. The result is tremendous value and continued innovation for both consumers and enterprise users."

JB Holston, CEO and president, said “We are uniquely positioned to drastically expand the community of people working with RSS content. The larger that community, the more valuable the experience for every user and for all of our services customers. That insight has led us to undertake the significant investment to make all of our client products free. Our 50 media and online publishing customers can now take advantage of this valuable intersection of community and content. With services such as our widget framework, these customers can syndicate the most relevant content, on a branded basis, to a much wider audience. In addition, we are rapidly growing our Software as a Service (SaaS) business by partnering with brands, agencies, and information service companies who can use attention and relevance metadata, provided by the NewsGator platform, to offer much richer and more relevant content solutions to their audiences. Look for more announcements about these efforts in the coming weeks.”

[JN update: I had the wrong quote from Mike in the first version, I updated this graph] Mike Gotta, Principal Analyst with Burton Group, said, “Burton Group has long been focusing on the evolution and business impact of RSS platforms in the enterprise. Making readers more available for all workers inside an organization makes it easier for people to participate in an RSS platform and makes it more possible to deliver a consistent feed reading experience across multiple application contexts. Not only is this a usability and productivity benefit for workers but the enterprise wins as well since the underlying RSS platform is able to capture and analyze relevant data on a much broader basis. Wider adoption of its free clients will likely generate a tremendous amount of relevance information, which can be used to augment systems installed at customer sites.”

The improved relevance information in NewsGator’s online platform will drive further innovation within each of the RSS clients. “When I joined NewsGator,” said Nick Bradbury, creator of FeedDemon, “I had a vision of FeedDemon leveraging the power of NewsGator’s platform to give PC users a better reading experience. Making all the clients free helps make that platform even richer and more powerful – I’m very excited about the possibilities and have some great features planned for the next release of FeedDemon.”

“The NewsGator platform enhancements will also enable great new features for Mac users,” said Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire. “Syncing with the NewsGator platform already makes NetNewsWire faster and lets users read their feeds on an iPhone. With these enhancements it will be even easier to recommend the best feeds and the coolest stories in NetNewsWire – creating a better user experience for both consumer and enterprise users.”

All client products are available for free download from the NewsGator website (www.newsgator.com). Additional information is available via this FAQ.

2008 : The Year of RSS

Marshall Kirkpatrick penned a good post just before Christmas on 2007 highlighting the year in RSS, which made me consider the year ahead in terms of both consumer and enterprise RSS adoption. I polled some of our leading thinkers on the subject and here's what came back:

1. Portal Plumbing. Using RSS / Atom as a way for backend systems to funnel information (both publishing and retrieving) into a single access points that are easy to use and easy to manage. Users won't need to know why all the information they find important is on one page. This is a no-brainer in many ways, and it reflects what is happening on the consumer side of the business. A large segment of users are taking advantage of start pages like iGoogle and Netvibes to be their own aggregator, and are using RSS to accomplish this, there is no reason why this should not also happen behind the firewall.
2. RSS will also drive more of the backend of social networks. Users are far better filters than any software - so finding relevant information for (and from) various nodes of your social graph will become even more important. RSS will be the transfer protocol between yourself and your social networks.
   
3. Ease of use will be greatly enhanced with discovery and filtering mechanisms to help you find new content and sort/organize the feeds you already subscribe to. People simply don't say "I need more content", but they do consistently say "I need better content".
4. The debate about privacy is far from over. As more attention-based services that respond to your defined preferences and observed behaviors emerge, the question will again be asked about opt-out or opt-in by default.
5. Publishing your reactions to this information via Atom publishing (or maybe some other unknown protocol) will become more important as well within social networks. A widely adaptable comment publishing protocol will emerge that would allow me to comment on an item, no matter where I read it, and have my comments visible to anyone else reading that item no matter where they decide to read it. My comments could also be mined for category information and push the original item into more relevancy for others in my social network.
   
6. Within the enterprise, the use of authenticated feeds to access transaction and master data systems will rise. Some of these feeds will be user-oriented (e.g. my sales leads) while others will be persistent search based (e.g. a feed for all customer support issues related to a specific customer).

Whatever is in store for us in the year ahead, RSS as an infrastructure technology is achieving critical mass. In the blogosphere we take for granted the omnipresence of RSS but the vast majority of the market is still untapped and ripe for disruption.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------Jeff Nolan is VP Corp Dev for NewsGator Technologies.